Top News of the Week

Robert A. Freitas Jr., author of the Nanomedicine series of books, has just published a major new theory paper on aspects of medical nanorobot control, providing an early glimpse of future discussions of this topic that are planned to appear in Chapter 12 (Nanorobot Control) of Nanomedicine, Vol. IIB: Systems and Operations, the third volume of the series (still in preparation)…

Eric Drexler is apparently at the Renaissance Weekend with the intent to speak to the assembled interesting people about how "advanced nanotechnology can address the climate change problem providing low-cost solar energy and by removing accumulated CO2 from the atmosphere." In the same spirit, for the rest of us, here's how I think we should go about using advanced nanotechnology to address the problem of climate change…

We have the devices. What we do not have is simply the infrastructure that macroscopic technology takes for granted: the ability to sort and test parts; to cut and join materials; to create frameworks that can hold devices in designed relationships, and the ability to place parts into such frameworks. (Drexler sometimes refers to this as the "circuit-board problem.")

And yet we should have. In 1959 Richard Feynman, in his seminal talk Plenty of Room at the Bottom, described a straight-forward, immediately actionable plan which would have resulted in exactly such an infrastructure well before 2000 if it had been followed…

It's appropriate on this July 7 to make at least a reference to the history of ideas that lies behind the Feynman Path. That's because July 7 is the (102nd) birthday of Robert A Heinlein, the famous SF writer, futurist, and inventor. His invention of interest is the "Waldo F. Jones Synchronous Reduplicating Pantograph" from the story Waldo. Heinlein is recognized as the conceptual inventor of the telemanipulator, often called a Waldo for that reason, but it is not as widely remembered that the original Waldoes in the story were (a) self-replicating ("Reduplicating") and (b) scale-shifting ("Pantograph")…

Foresight Events – Lectures

Foresight Lectures

July 30, 2009
Singularity University
Mountain View, CaliforniaChristine Peterson will moderate and Foresight advisor Stewart Brand will serve on a panel on time horizons in an accelerating world, for Singularity University participants.Click here for conference details

August 20-22, 2009
Gnomedex: a technology conference of inspiration and influence
Seattle, WashingtonChristine Peterson will speak on life extension.Click here for conference details

Advancements in technologies such as nanotech, robotics, and biotech are promising to make major differences in our lives in the not-too-distant future, as the Industrial Revolution did to the agrarian world — to do for the physical world what the computer and Internet have done to the world of information.

Since 1986, the Foresight Institute has been in the forefront of a worldwide community of visionaries who work to help shape these possibilities into a positive, beneficial reality. If you would like to help us understand the potential of these technologies, and influence their direction, please consider becoming a member of the Foresight community. With your support, Foresight will continue to educate the general public on these technologies and what they will mean to our society.

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Organised crime, terrorism, civil conflict, and natural disasters are sadly commonplace in global society and have developed increasingly complex dimensions. To counter such threats, civil security and emergency response teams are looking towards new technologies that offer more sensitive, rapid, and accurate detection methods; that provide the means to neutralise or effectively deal with the outcomes of such incidents; and that provide greater protection to personnel.

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The Foresight Institute Weekly News Digest has merged with Foresight Update and is emailed every week to 15,000 individuals in more than 125 countries. Foresight Institute is a member-supported organization. We offer membership levels appropriate to meet the needs and interests of individuals and companies. To find out more about membership, follow this link:http://www.foresight.org/members/index.html